1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to certain new and useful improvements in information locating and presentation systems and in particular, to an information locating and presenting system which operates so that one of a large number of separate messages can be selected and located from a pre-recorded medium in a minimum amount of search time and thereafter presented.
2. A Brief Description of the Prior Art
There are various video display systems available for promotional and informational purposes. A typical system frequently seen in department stores consists of a continuous loop of film having images of the film constantly projected on a screen. A similar system is frequently used in museums with the additional feature that the projector automaticlly stops showing the message or other presentation at the end of the film. Since the film is in a continuous loop with the same or similar messages recorded sequentially on the film several times the observer merely presses a start button to commence the projection of the same message another time.
Continuous loop sound tapes have been known for quite some time. Systems incorporating the tape loops range from eight-track cartridge players to telephone answering machines. Both the tape and film continuous loop systems are useful for presenting a single program. However, it is impractical to incorporate multiple programs onto the continuous loop since the system must run all of the programs before it returns to any of the previously run programs. This inconvenience has been experienced by anyone having an eight-track tape who desires to hear a particular selection at the end of the tape. Thus with thirty thirty-second programs on a continuous loop system the viewer would have to wait up to fifteen minutes before seeing or hearing a desired selection.
These difficulties emphasize the desirability of providing a random access capability in a system for displaying a plurality of programs. An example of such a system is the juke box apparatus wherein by inputing the appropriate code a listener can access any of the plurality of records contained in the apparatus.